“Don’t do that, Grayson.”
“Do what? Ask you to marry me? Ask you to spend the rest of your life with me? Because that is all I’m guilty of right now.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be the reason you, you who are such an amazing person, suffers.”
“I suffered without you. I suffered just hearing you say I might be better off without you. I can’t do ‘maybe’ with you. If that’s where we’re headed, you need to tell me right now. If you weren’t ready, if I pushed—”
“You didn’t. God, no. You didn’t.”
“And yet, those words came out of your mouth. Those words I never want to hear again.”
Somehow in that moment, he’s the refuge I seek and everything I’m running from. He wants to protect me. I want to protect him. I can’t be his destruction, but as I stare into his green eyes, the shadows there drenched in torment, I know that I am his refuge, too. His soul fills my soul as mine does his.
A tornado of emotion rips through me, the debris of a year of heartache and hell leaving me bleeding inside in ways that I won’t survive without this man. I throw my arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’m scared. I need you and love you.” I pull back to look at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
His voice is low but somehow intense, his eyes shadowed, and I feel a pinch in my chest. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that. More than life itself.”
“Then that means there is no obstacle we don’t go through together. Understand?”
It’s not a question but a demand. “I want to be the best thing that ever happened to you, not the worst.”
“You are. Ri was the problem. He still is. You didn’t do this.”
“I let him—”
“We let him. We’ve talked about all the ways we let that happen. It’s behind us. If that can’t happen—”
“It can. You’re right. I’m not myself right now. Something happened at the airport.”
His hands frame my face. “Because there can’t be an earthquake without aftershocks. You were attacked, baby. You’re human. You’re going to feel the shock and the aftermath.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But it’s not just me feeling the aftermath. It’s him, too, and his company, and I’m terrified about just how bad those aftershocks might be when they hit. I don’t say that, though. That’s not what he needs to hear right now.
“And my cure is you. And Chinese food. I think we both need Chinese food.”
He rewards me with a curve of his sexy lips and with it, the air shifts, our moods soften. For now, we will enjoy each other. Tomorrow, we’ll fight for each other.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mia
Grayson and I order food and then organize the bags Blake and Kara brought us. For me, I decide as I hang a few garments up, the discomfort of having only what someone else packed us is not rooted in a lack of privacy. It’s about the reasons we’re here. It’s about Ri. A memory of that stairwell, of Grayson standing in front of me and Ri behind me, punches at my mind, and I forcefully shove it aside. When I turn away from the closet and find Grayson setting up his side of the sink, that horrid moment is washed from my mind, at least for now.
Fifteen minutes later, we’ve laughed at the one razor I’m going to steal from him, and changed into our sleep clothes that are really our “before we get naked clothes.” For me, that’s boxers and a tank. For him, it’s sweats and a T-shirt. Grayson flips on the television in the bedroom to his favorite true crime channel. We have always watched the cases and each played prosecutor or defender as we litigated it as if it were our own. Tonight, the talk is of someone being shot, it’s nerve-wracking.
There’s a knock at the door and Grayson heads in that direction to grab our food. I snap up the remote and change the channel to the one spot I know will be safe: Hallmark. Grayson returns and we settle onto the comfy hotel bed to prepare to chow down, as my father would say. It’s not home, but it’s cozy, and we’re together, playing house until we’re actually in our house, which is actually an apartment. Once my plate of lo mein is open and tempting my watering mouth, I sigh. “I missed this place.”
He opens the egg rolls and offers me one. “When was the last time you had it?”
I happily claim a crispy eggroll. “Last year. With you.” I wet my lips, suddenly dreading and somehow craving his reply to the same question. “You?”
“The same.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he confirms.
I am pleased with this news and warmed in ways that I shouldn’t be warmed. He shouldn’t have had to give up things he loved because I stupidly left. But he did. And I did. “I didn’t do any of our things when we were apart. Those things made me need you too badly to survive.”
“Well, I wish you would have done them then.”
I tilt my head and study him. “You do?”
“Yes. Then maybe you would have hurt too badly to stay away.” He takes a bite of the eggroll and gives an approving nod before indicating the TV. “Is this the one where he proposes on a horse or at an ice rink?” His eyes twinkle with mischief, absolutely no judgment in him for my channel change.
“At the lighthouse,” I amend. “It’s the one with the perfect proposal.”
The air sizzles, and he says, “Is that right?”
“Yes. The girl finally got smart and came home.” I eye the hotel. “To her man. And she doesn’t even care that they’re now living at the Ritz.” Unbidden, there’s a pinch in my chest, some tiny part of me fearing that I’ll never really get back to our real home. That stupid, self-defeating part of me that I barely know as me and that keeps returning to that stairwell.
Grayson must read between my lightly spoken words, because he leans over, nuzzles my neck and whispers, “You want me to tell you how the story ends?”
I ease back to stare into those simmering green eyes. “How?”
“The heroine eats Chinese food, gets naked with her future husband, and then later marries her fiancé at the lighthouse. In the original dress she ordered for the first wedding, or any dress she wishes.”
“Because he saved her dress. He held onto it because he held onto me.” Heart swelling, I reach over and touch his jaw, as I add, “And she lives happily ever after, with the most incredible man any woman could ever love.”
He kisses my fingers. “After they eat Chinese food, right?”
“Yes.” I laugh. “After they eat Chinese food.”
And so, we do. We eat. And laugh. And watch the movie, both of us betting on when the peck of a kiss Hallmark will allow, actually happens. When finally we climb into bed, it’s naked. When finally we sleep, it’s with his big, wonderful body wrapped around mine. And I don’t let myself lay there and think about the day ahead or the reasons we’re in the hotel room. I shut my eyes and think about the lighthouse, my dress, and the moment I get to say “I do.”